


Crema Verse Prompt Fill #24

by twobirdsonesong



Series: Crema Verse [27]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, AnderBros, Brothers, Coming Out, Crema verse, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:52:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>curlsanderson asked you: Crema prompt: What about the day that Blaine came out to Cooper? I love this verse, thank you so much for writing it *U*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crema Verse Prompt Fill #24

Cooper is in his bedroom and he’s staring inside his closet at the long rack of clothes.  He has too many thick sweaters and cozy cardigans and heavy coats.  He has scarves and gloves and winter boots that keep his feet warm and dry.  He has more long-sleeved Henleys than he cares to think about.  But none of these will serve him where he’s going.

Cooper reaches out and touches the sleeve of one of his favorite shirts.  The fabric is soft and worn between his fingers from countless uses.  Perhaps he can leave some things behind.  It would certainly lighten up his packing.  Blaine is still growing, though maybe not as much as he wishes, and Cooper thinks that maybe some of his stuff will fit Blaine.  One day.

A soft, hesitant knock from behind him draws his attention away from the closet.  Blaine is standing there, half hidden around the doorway.  His expression is tense and pensive and Cooper frowns a little.  Blaine was his normal smiling self that morning over a breakfast of pancakes.

“Hey, B.  What’s up, man?”  Cooper tries to sound as cheerful as possible, but just the sight of his little brother makes his heart clench painfully.  He has no idea how he’s going to tell Blaine what’s going on.

“Coop, I-”

Blaine is clearly nervous.  He’s twisting his hands together and biting at his lower lip.  His eyes are darting all around Cooper’s room, the room that could very well become his soon enough.  If he wants it.  Cooper tastes bile in the back of his throat.

“Can we…do you have a second?”

He doesn’t.  He has a flight that he needs to book and he still has to find a place to live in LA that he can afford (which is  _nowhere_ ), but Blaine doesn’t need to know that.  Not yet. 

“For you, B?  Always.”

It’s always going to be true, Cooper promises himself in that moment.  Whatever happens, he’ll make time for Blaine.  He owes him at least that much, especially given what he’s going to do to him soon.

“Can I come in?”  Blaine shifts and grips the doorframe so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

“Of course, god, you know you don’t have to ask.”  Cooper steps away from the closet and sits down on the end of his bed.  “Come on.”

Blaine approaches the bed with careful steps and sits down so slowly, so tentatively, Cooper hardly feels the dip of the mattress.  He draws one leg up and rests his chin on his knee as he coils his arms around his leg, pulling himself in tight and compact.  It’s not like Blaine to be this reserved, not with  _him_.  With everyone else, Blaine is the small, quiet boy who needs a little coaxing to peek out of his shell, but not with Cooper.  With Cooper, he’s just the little brother who has too much energy thrumming under his skin and a mischievous grin too often curving his lips.  He’s just Blaine.

“So…” Cooper makes a  _go on_ gesture and Blaine licks his lips.  His lashes are a dark sweep against his pale cheeks as he blinks.

“Coop – I…I think that I,” Blaine pauses and swallows, and even Cooper can hear the dry, choked sound of it in the weighty silence of the room.  Blaine is pale, so pale that it almost scares Cooper, and there’s a fine sheen of nervous sweat across his furrowed brow.  His wan features are drawn tight and his whole body is fairly vibrating with anxious energy.  Cooper wants to pull Blaine into his arms and hold him close just so he doesn’t shake himself apart.  His baby brother shouldn’t look so old so young.

 _Tell me_ , Cooper thinks.  But he can’t push.  If he pushes too hard, Blaine will bolt.  He tries to think of all the possible things Blaine could be struggling to tell him.  Did he cheat on a test?  Did he break a vase in their father’s study?  Did he steal something from a store and doesn’t know how to give it back without getting caught?  A hundred things tumble through Cooper’s mind, and none of them make any sense of Blaine’s behavior.

“It’s just that, well – there’s this thing.  It’s…I’m pretty sure that I’m-” Blaine cuts himself off with a frustrated, agonized sound that seems to come from his very gut.  He buries his face in his knee and his hair falls past his cheekbones.

 _You’re gay_ , Cooper thinks with sudden clarity.  The pieces click together with a resounding toll and that’s that.  That’s the truth and Cooper’s not surprised in the least.  There’s never been one, singular  _thing_  that’s made Cooper wonder, never something he could point at and think, “Yep, there it is.”  It’s just there in the very fiber of Blaine’s being.  But it’s not for him to say, as much as he wants to take the taxing words from his brother and give them voice.  Blaine has to be the one to put himself into words.

“It’s ok,” Cooper does say, and he sees the shiver that wracks through Blaine at those small, powerful words alone.  He aches to gather Blaine in his arms and run his hands comfortingly down his back, to soothe him the way he used to when Blaine was a toddler and so afraid of thunderstorms.  Or when he was a baby and wanted no one to hold him as much as he wanted Cooper.

“Whatever it is you want to talk about, I’m here.”  He’ll wait for as long as Blaine needs, even if it’s years.  He’ll be there when Blaine’s ready to tell him what he already knows.

Blaine sucks in a quick breath and then:

“I’m gay.”  It comes out whisper-soft, a bird’s wing of words breathed out into the world.  Indelible and enduring.

Cooper smiles warmly and reaches out, finally, to place a reassuring hand on Blaine’s tense back.  Blaine shudders at the touch, but suddenly he’s pushing towards Cooper and forcing himself into his arms.  Cooper shifts and pulls Blaine close until his little brother is almost in his lap.  He wraps his arms around Blaine’s body and squeezes so tightly he’s sure it must be hard for Blaine to breathe.  Blaine’s face is pressed to his chest, but he doesn’t seem to be crying.  Not yet.

He wants to have a conversation about this, but Blaine is too young for that.  He can’t know the absolute breadth and depth of what he’s saying.  He can’t know what it truly _means_.  But he feels, he  _knows_ , and that’s more than enough.  It doesn’t make it any less true.  There’s time later for a different kind of discussion.

“Are you-” Cooper pauses and searches for the right words.  He doesn’t need to be delicate, but he wants to be sensitive.  “Are you ok?”  It’s such a useless, inadequate question, but it’s all he has.

“I’m….” Blaine shrugs as best he can and burrows into Cooper’s chest.

 _Terrified.  Relieved.  Confused_.  Cooper can’t imagine how Blaine is truly feeling, he can’t know.  But Cooper hopes one day Blaine will be able to articulate it.

“Blaine, you are perfect, ok?”  He whispers fiercely, and there’s a hitch in Blaine’s breath.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  Blaine mumbles into Cooper’s shirt and Cooper’s gut twists sharply with the shame of everything Blaine doesn’t know.

The tears spring hard and fast to his eyes, crushing and awful, and he buries his face in Blaine’s soft hair to hide them.

 _He’s never going to forgive me,_  Cooper thinks, and he feels damned.


End file.
